When you have effectively fallen out with everyone you know - it's you, isn't it?

[Contra]

Basically, is your ability to maintain relationships a barometer of your personality?

Since I had my second child, I have been shedding friends and confidantes at a steady pace. I'm now down to about, er, three? One very, very good friend (the kind who is never going away) and two I really like and trust, but have a more casual friendship with. There are a few others, but I would struggle to have more than 5 minutes' conversation with them.

In 18 months, I've lost/let slide about 15 friends (5 who were previously very close), 15 friends-of-my-DH (a few of whom I really like), am permanently at odds with my DH and, increasingly, his family. There's no drama going on; I just find life easier with fewer people in it. Or something. I just seem compelled to let these relationships go.

It wasn't like this 2 years ago. I don't feel unhappy, but I suppose I do feel isolated and lonely.

My mum lives a long way away (which works for us: we get on well across the distance). My brother seems to have gone the way of my friends.

Is it a terrible thing? As a body of evidence, it is pretty compelling. But generally, I don't give those people a thought.

Am a bit upset tonight because I have had a fall out with DH and noticed a flurry of FB chat about an arrangement that excludes me entirely. I don't expect the arrangement to include me (or even want it to, actually), but I'm still sad it no longer does. Have also decided to finally stop replying to texts from former friend who is a bit of a passive aggressive competitive type. So that's another one.

Sorry. Self indulgent.

What do you all have against Facebook? It provides 99 per cent of my "social life" at the moment. Not ideal but better than nothing.

I am down to two friends, would love to have more but it takes me forever to make friends and I just don't meet people (middle-aged self-employed single mother with social anxiety).

Hi Contra,

Thanks for starting this thread, I've really enjoyed reading it and can relate to so much of what you're saying. I too found it all very easy in my 20s and hung out with perpetual crowds of like-minded, boozy, bantering misfits. When we first moved to a new area 6 years ago I intitially made lots of all-in-the-same-boat friends in a flurry of toddler groups and playdates. They were all, and remain, lovely people but somehow I gradually started to feel more and more like a fish out of water as we all settled into this life stage (or failed to very well, in my case!) and in many cases we have just drifted apart as our different parenting/lifestyle paths have become more apparent. DS1 has started school now and I was hoping that would be another opportunity to meet people but tbh at the school gate I just feel further apart from my peers than ever.

I don't know, I often feel that I just don't suit this life stage. I was great at being a young person, and have a feeling I'll make a pretty cool mad old bat, just this yummy mummy bit where others my age seem to be a lot more organised and refined and sorted and conservative (with a small c) than I am... I just feel a bit, i dunno, wrong....socially dishevelled, if there's such a thing.

FWIW you sound ace and funny and just the sort of person I'd want to be friends with (even if we're just making silly faces at each other from our respective positions on the margins of social acceptability )

Facebook seems to work fine for teenagers, but some adults seem to get overly worked up about what people do/ don't post on their facebook pages and get worked up about status updates and perceived slights.
To me it seems a bit pointless. If I want to tell someone something I'll email or phone them.

It often seems a bit "me, me, me" as well.

Yyy contra - that's how I feel when I go 'home'. I don't get much of a chance to see folks I know apart from family, like you, I find my time is limited when I'm there.

But I can just relax, knowing people 'get' what I'm saying, I don't have to modify my accent or change the words I use - they just understand me & my sense of humour. (I've noticed they even look like me - spooky!)

Contra I get you totally. What I've enjoyed about this summer is NOT seeing other people. I'm dreading the whole school playground malarky, talking endless shite to people about their kids.
I have become so anti social that I couldn't say I had three friends now. Loads of people I know to chat to, but actually only one person I'd ring if I was upset.
I really understand being sad that you haven't been invited somewhere but at the same time not wanting to be invited either.
This is so refreshing to read. I thought I was the only person who felt like this.
Today in a playground with three youngest dc's, noticing that everyone else was with one other person at least, if not in a large group. Then listening to some of the conversations these people were having, I was very glad I was on my own

Oh, I do love this thread so very much!! Am feeling far less isolated and strange - thank you.

I am also loving the emerging Antisocial Society Of course, we'd be shocking at keeping in touch and would barely say 2 words to each other, but it would be enough, just to nod quietly across the room and understand ...

And quickly - because I hate picking out particular posts as it then implies I haven't appreciated the other ones (does it? I hope not):

hormones - yes, exactly. What do you think to the theory that, possibly, certain times of your life mould your humour/attitudes/bad language in particular ways and then you're kind of stuck finding only those things funny? There was Big Leap Forward in 1988 for me, then subsequent (smaller, and getting smaller each times) ones in 1994, 2000 and 2006.

Wow. Look at that. I have a Sense of Humour upgrade every 6 years. That is .... bizarre. Roll on 2012, I reckon. I'll be nearly 40 (years, stone, units per day, whatever), so will need a good laugh.

roundwindow - oh, I like you! But how problematic, given the circumstance of our meeting

and kitty - my DS starts school in a week. I am shitting myself not particularly looking forward to the social element.

shitting myself

One day, I will get that right.

I think it is why I like MN so much. I don't panic at the 'commitment' side of making friends here, and don't have to worry about when I have to get away, also, if you find the conversation boring, you can just opt out. There is also not the insecurities of worrying about a friend not calling and worrying you've done something wrong, but at times, you can have curiously intimate conversations and even relationships here.

pardon my dreadful syntax.

Oh wouldn't it be wonderful if we could meet up us anti social lot eh? I bet we wouldn't be antisocial with each other
It's good to know I'm not the only one. Don't suppose there are any of you in the Brighton area that wouldn't fancy a meet up? Nah, thought not!!!

Yes contra then you have all the " can I go to so and so's" malarky I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!! No dc's be as anti social as me, it's much easier LOL

I've been thinking about this thread.
Nearly all the people I've been good friends with, and mostly still am good friends with, over the past 15 years, have bloody MOVED, and then we moved, and I have found it harder to make new friends the older I've become.
I really miss them. I'm not bothered about being surrounded by people but just to be able to meet up with pals from Australia, the US, S Africa - that would be wonderful. Oh for piles of dosh.

Great thread, really thought provoking.

I have always been extroverted in the sense of getting my energy by being surrounded by others. As I age, I have changed. I dislike large groups, to the point where I kept sneaking off at my own wedding reception to breathe. I always think when I'm without adult company that I want some, so arrange to meet up with someone and its never satisfactory. Its like I'm always searching for a hit and I am always left deflated.

I nodded profusely with the poster who talked about being fun when they'd had a few drinks, pre kids. I am dull now. I feel dull. I used to have zing, be sharp/sarcastic, often helped by tobacco and alcohol, now almost gone from my life with two small children.

I also agree with roundwindow about not really being "good" at this life stage. I love my kids dearly but the lifestyle doesn't suit my temperament and this makes me dissatisfied which means I don't really want to socialise.

Have namechanged for this as I think a few of my acquaintances might sniff me out.

yes that's very true re searching for a hit and then feeling deflated. Odd, isn't it.

PO: I really agree. I like it for exactly the same reasons. Despite my reluctance to commit to the everydayness of friendships, I love intimacy (in short bursts and on my terms). God, I am some kind of promiscuous commitmentphobe: I want lots of intimate interactions with lots of faceless people, but have no stomach for commitment Who knew???

Kitty: sorry. Middle of the country. Marooned. I envy your sea and miss mine.

prune: yes, I've usually been the one moving, but I have lost most of my very good friends through the sheer difficulty of maintaining a friendship over a distance. Sucks, does it not? I think we (in general) overlook the way that the constant relocating for jobs / lifestyle / excitement is actually pretty devastating to our social selves.

spareme: pretty much agree with everything you and roundwindow said. I thought this would be the time of my life and that I would finally grow into myself, but maybe all the selfless parenting/jobbing stuff leaves little room for me to be independently happy. I wanted this stage of life for a long time - really wanted my children - but I do hear that life gets a whole lot better once the youngest turns 5 :)

Re the hit: we are encouraged to do it, though, aren't we? Especially as Mums. So much blad-de-blahing on about support networks and coffee-and-cake whilst the children develop socially. I've never talked so much superficial, meaningless twaddle in my life.

That's not actually what the thread was about, as some of the people I've moved on from are genuinely funny and clever. Maybe I'm the one who's dull and limited.

Contra I love your comments about being a promiscuous commitmentphobe, so understand this!

I do love MN for threads like this, I would never discuss this is RL, but it is so good not to feel alone in these emotions.

Re the hit, its not just the endless stream of StepfordMums, but also funny/clever/talented friends, I guess if I'm honest some of the hit is about feeling good about myself within the relationship to that friend, and as I feel dull and boring, no matter how funny/clever/talented my friend is, ain't never going to get that buzz because I am not happy with myself.

And there's nothing like seeing a funny, clever and talented friend (with a rocking social life) to make one feel dull, stupid and pointless.

I have let one friendship slide because, through no fault of her own, the person in question was making me feel like shite (or I was making myself feel like shite). She is living the life I want to live. I get a chokey feeling every time I think of her.

She is, of course, tremendously lovely and popular I am pretty certain she will scarcely notice my withdrawal (possibly be a bit relieved).

I do sound like a class A misery arse. FFS. Too much time spent folding baby vests and brooding.

Spareme: perhaps we are genuinely wading through some kind of low level depression (in the loosest sense: maybe it's less emotive to call it a 'fallow period' or 'reclusive episode' ) that will lift when the children are older and we get some time back. Maybe it's actually some kind of evolutionary quirk: we drop social contacts in order to care for the small people.

Maybe I'm really hoping to find an explanation more glamorous than my being a miserable bastard ...

Contra, thank you, this has been a really interesting thread.

I don't think anyone's raised this, though- the possibility that you've raised your standards about what you spend your time on. I have so little free time these days that I don't want to maintain relationships with people whose company I don't enjoy.

I realised about 4 years ago, after a really difficult year in which I was hard to be around and lost a lot of friends (and family to an extent) that I had always been a bit of a "rescuer" and had far too many people in my life who relied on me to cheer them up/listen/sort them out. I passed through quite a lonely period of wondering why everyone was suddenly too busy to visit or even phone, and then the blinkers fell off. It was a sad time, but honestly was one of the best things ever to happen to me.

Before that I had been under a spell of taking all my value from the fact that I was helpful, comforting, or entertaining to others. It has been a great (but difficult) journey to the realisation that I am all right just as I am.

I feel I ought to say, I do know a few people via Mn and I think they're fab
I'm mainly thinking here of people I've met through nursery/school/work, and not hit it off with at all.

This resonates! I think if you are anti social the key is to lose your fear of asking for cpamy when you need it. What I mean is, when you are no longer automatically included, you need to get used to just asking when you do want to be. and not being afraid of people thinking you are needy.

will quite happily ask and invite without fear of rejection now because a. surprise, one isn't often, and people are pleased you're being sociable for a change and b. so what. it's all the same in a hundred years.